FCBD 2015 Review – Orlok

Free Comic Book Day? Again? Well, Orlok gets on a very bumpy ferry, walks two kays up Queen Street, braves the Bohemian shithole that is Karangahape Road and steps through the doors of his “local” shop. It had better be worth it…

PREAMBLE:
Easy pickings this year once again. Rather than queue up with the plebs I waltzed in late in the afternoon, laid my mitts on the pile of largely untouched Progs and scooped up two before hightailing it out to a coffee and chocolate show. It’s a tough life in Mordor.

COVER:
Some gorgeous Flinty goodness here with excellent background work, including the street scene. Cheekily it shows how other comics either bore us or give us brain bleeds but 2000AD just delivers thrills. Clearly they haven’t read the latest Orlok strip which does both in equal measure.
Inside is a nice get well message from Yewtree Tharg for Norm Breyfogle and the rear cover is a quality tribute to the late Brett Ewins. I found the Judge badge a bit odd considering his run in with the law back in 2012.
We also get adverts; five pages of them as the Galaxy’s Greatest sells its wares to five different clients. There’s nothing wrong with making a bit of cash but it does seem like Tharg is whoring the brand around quite a bit. Still, if it gets in more punters or gives them enough cash to pay the creative teams accordingly, then all good.

DREDD:
A strangely bland tale from Tharg himself as a new initiative puts block relations under strain.
The story itself isn’t bad but features a few odd moments including a robot assaulting a human and going unchallenged until Dredd turns up. It’s weird that in the Big Meg with all the robotic laws in place (especially after two robot wars) that the assaulted cit wouldn’t go straight to the Jays. Mind you, he probably just wanted an excuse to use the lazooka.
The art is nice with the best panel for me being the realistic poses on the overhead on page 2, especially the body language reactions of the crowd as Dredd pulls up.
Weirdly the last two panels show the unfortunate blocker wearing different clothes in each.

3000AD:THE TRAVELLER:
Quite a nice retro tale from (I think) one of the Dan Dare annuals. Great McMahon artwork with a decent fun ending.

DEATHROCK:
The mining of the classics continues with the great Harry 20 On The High Rock being given a sequel. I’m in two minds about this since some things should just be left alone.
The art from Willsher is lovely with some great colourwork on display. The planet name features a nice numerical pun in the form of LV42666, which will please both Aliens fans and Christians alike.
Love the robot bat for collecting blood samples too.
It’s also open ended for now so we don’t know if the cigar chewing asshole gets his comeuppance or not.

NEMESIS:
Good reprint with some beautiful O’Neill art rendered in colour. Love the credit scroll.

DR SIN:
I liked this. The script fizzes nicely and the art is solid throughout.
The interactions between Sin and Sin Tax were pretty cool, especially the revelations about the sexually adventurous granny.
Damned good panel work too. I want to see more.

DAN DARE:
Another old school reprint, this time with unstoppable monster Dan Dare doing what he does best; being an enormous cunt. By the end of this episode Dan has forced his crew of retards (one of them is aiming a gun at the viewscreen at one point so he clearly doesn’t understand how that works) into invading the sovereign territory of the Starslavers. When the Starslavers respond with a barrage that drives the invader away, their representative tells the earthmen to fuck off or die. Note how they don’t kill them anyway; they are given a choice to leave their territory or suffer the consequences. His penis insulted and some of his men dead because of his arrogance, Dare goes full terrorist and promises to wipe out the entire Starslavers Empire.
And that is the action a fucking maniac.

SLAINE:
Very nice. Saw it fairly recently though.

DAILY STAR DREDD:
Not bad. And it’s good to see we are getting a second volume.

ALIEN INVASIONS:
These are beautiful and very funny with the pick of the crop being the Orange Jellyfish Crisis.
Good work from the boy Flint there.

TOP THRILL:
Dr Sin. Thought it was pretty funny and I’d like to see it expanded.

DISCLAIMER

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